The rise of the ironic pot and the ironic bag
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Why a growing community is customising the L.L.Bean staple with everything but monograms.
When you see one of L.L.Bean's Boat and Tote bags on the street - carried in the supermarket queue, draped over a beach towel - there's a certain expectation of what's embroidered on the side. Unembroidered in baroque script or full of it in garish capital letters it is not. For nearly 80 years, L.L.Bean's canvas bags were mostly personalised with monograms and cheesy phrases, but a growing movement on social media is taking the classic embroidery in a more fun direction.
Dubbed the ‘Ironic Boat and Tote,’ the bag eschews the simple monogram to include a sarcastic phrase or pop culture reference. The more unexpected, the better. Gracie Wiener, Air Mail's social media editor and ‘lifelong’ Boat and Tote carrier, catalogues the sightings for an audience of 25.6k followers on Instagram (@ironicboatandtote) and another 25.3k on TikTok (@graciewiener). On the group chat app Geneva, he manages a 24/7 discussion on Boat and Tote with 544 members and counting. In addition to her profile, totes have also been covered by several TikTok creators, such as @oldloserinbrooklyn and @glowupu.
Read more on BAZAAR.
When you see one of L.L.Bean's Boat and Tote bags on the street - carried in the supermarket queue, draped over a beach towel - there's a certain expectation of what's embroidered on the side. Unembroidered in baroque script or full of it in garish capital letters it is not. For nearly 80 years, L.L.Bean's canvas bags were mostly personalised with monograms and cheesy phrases, but a growing movement on social media is taking the classic embroidery in a more fun direction.
Dubbed the ‘Ironic Boat and Tote,’ the bag eschews the simple monogram to include a sarcastic phrase or pop culture reference. The more unexpected, the better. Gracie Wiener, Air Mail's social media editor and ‘lifelong’ Boat and Tote carrier, catalogues the sightings for an audience of 25.6k followers on Instagram (@ironicboatandtote) and another 25.3k on TikTok (@graciewiener). On the group chat app Geneva, he manages a 24/7 discussion on Boat and Tote with 544 members and counting. In addition to her profile, totes have also been covered by several TikTok creators, such as @oldloserinbrooklyn and @glowupu.
Read more on BAZAAR.